<p>I don’t mean to pick on you but who are the wannabes? Are Duke one of them, or Northwestern? It is not ok to distinguish upper and lower Ivies but it is ok to distinguish Ivies and non-ivies? USNWR is terrible but if you have personal opinion that your school is so much better by whatever justification you have in your mind, then that’s ok?</p>
<p>Am I not speaking English or something? I think it’s weird to isolate the Ivies from other elite schools, and I think it’s weird whenever someone posts “want to get into an Ivy” as opposed to “want to get into a really good / elite school” because frankly I don’t see any meaningful difference between most of the Ivies and most of the other elite schools at that level in terms of life opportunities. (And, oh dear god, SPARE me from the “but if you want to be an i-banker!” crap - as if that profession is any more or less important than any other profession) </p>
<p>The whole point is that I don’t think my school is “so much better by whatever justification I have in my mind.” I"m perfectly content knowing that it’s one of the nation’s elite schools, and I don’t have to be the kind of dork who crows that it’s X points higher than (insert other school) or that “look, it’s almost as good as Harvard when measured by XYZ!” Who cares? What kind of sophisticated person parses the data at that fine a level, anyway? If my kids got into every single top 20 university or LAC, I’d say - pick what you want, they are all fine choices and you can’t go wrong.</p>
<p>“That’s very true, too. It probably explains why people who are students at Harvard et al. don’t always mention it to people when they first meet them.”</p>
<p>Does anybody mention what college they went to when they first meet someone?</p>
<p>glido - what do you mean? Didn’t I tell you where I went to college when we first met on 2012 thread? :p</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I may not read English very well, but it seems one moment you seem to agree with the Ivy contingent that says we are above the conversation really because we don’t need USNews to tell us something that we know all along that we are better than the rest of those that sometimes climb up the ranking, and then the next you seem to say all good schools are good schools, we don’t need to distinguish them. If you believe in the latter, it seems to not square very well with the former and I would think you would not use a term like the “wannabes”.</p>
<p>Sorry, this is off topic. I won’t bother you anymore.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I say this with humor…There are many people from my neck of the woods who would say “you never have to ask an Ivy grad where they went to school, because they find a way to tell you within the first few minutes of being introduced” I have experienced this a couple of times, but the funniest was on move in day for S2. His roommates parents didn’t have to say a word, but dad was wearing a ratty old Harvard Law tee and mom sported a Columbia Law sweatshirt. Too funny!</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>On move-in day for D1 for her freshman year, as I recall I was wearing a ratty old long-sleeve UC Davis (my alma mater) T-shirt. As far as I could tell no one seemed to think this was amusing. Are Ivy League alums not allowed to have school spirit too?</p>
<p>I hope everyone has school spirit. I was just referring to the local joke that Ivy grads always find a way to let you know where they attended school. </p>
<p>and I love the ratty old shirts - no dis intended</p>
<p>I think it’s any interesting question-can ivy grads show school spirit in all situations. I can tell you than among Harvard alum, we down play where we went in the majority of situations.</p>
<p>So the question, where did you go to College, is most often answered by saying: “in the Boston area.”</p>
<p>I don’t own any Harvard t-shirts any more because people think you are boasting if you wear them. Doesn’t really seem fair to me. This is the only place where I ever talk about it.</p>
<p>I think that attitude says far more about the onlooker than the person wearing the Harvard t-shirt. Wearing a t-shirt is only “bragging” in the eyes of the jealous and insecure.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Okay, but why it is not even noticed when say a UCLA alum lets you know where he went to school, but when an Ivy alum does the exact same thing it’s bragging? </p>
<br>
<br>
<p>And the common reply to that answer is “Which House?”</p>
<p>I see this thread has taken on the same direction. I was just going to post that D2 is getting a lot of emails from many other top tier schools to apply now - more so than before Dec. She has been accepted ED. I don’t understand why the Ivies (they tend to share more information and rules with each other) couldn’t share their ED lists and know who are off the market.</p>
<p>They will share the ED lists, but sounds like it hasn’t happened yet.</p>
<p>Late to the thread but I’ve read most of it and it reminded me of a discussion from a year and a half ago:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/913360-why-do-elite-college-recruit-so-much.html?highlight=harvard+alum[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/913360-why-do-elite-college-recruit-so-much.html?highlight=harvard+alum</a></p>
<p>In it JHS was arguing, as some are here, that the reputed tippy top colleges don’t care about rankings or their admissions rate and their motives for “casting a wide net” are purely in the interest of diversity and finding the “jewels in the rough”.</p>
<p>I will reiterate my argument from that thread that it is patently disingenuous to suggest that Harvard or any other school does not care about their perceived status, whether it be in magazine rankings, international name recognition or general prestige. And perhaps very misguidedly, selectivity IS a proxy for prestige, quality and desirability in college branding. That should be quite obvious to anyone who has been on CC for a while. This is a mindset held not just by clueless high schoolers or undergrads, it clearly carries over to many parents and alums, whether they admit it or not.</p>
<p>Selectivity is judged almost completely in terms of admission rates by the outside world and to suggest that HYP or any other institution is unconcerned or unaware of this is, again, disingenuous. The claim that Harvard in carrying out these mailings is not in part motivated by a need to draw an ever increasing number of applications and thus lower admissions rates to keep them below those of close rivals can only be asserted by ivy leaguers in denial.</p>
<p>Yes, Harvard et al. are looking to form a diverse student body in every sense. But ask yourselves if you could not figure out better ways for them to identify those “diamonds” for the same amount of money taking a page from how athletic recruiting is handled.</p>
<p>The arms race on selectivity has only a tangential relation to the U.S. News rankings as it is has very little weight in the formula, but you can bet no school is above attempts to maintain (or improve) their image with whatever reasonable means available, including soliciting more applications.</p>
<p>Oh and this:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This statement, dripping with irony, shows that even mature adults are not free of the competitive attitude in school rivalries and rankings. And I don’t mean to pick on Hunt, or Harvard or Yale, as I am sure there are plenty of Princeton alums that would irrationally express similar disdain for Columbia or Penn.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Or how fake Viagra is marketed.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Perhaps, but you’re always very quick to point out that “it’s one of the nation’s elite schools” and to take major offense when somebody suggests that “the Ivies” are a very special tone of cat’s meow.</p>
<p>Wildwood wrote:</p>
<p>“I will reiterate my argument from that thread that it is patently disingenuous to suggest that Harvard or any other school does not care about their perceived status, whether it be in magazine rankings, international name recognition or general prestige.”</p>
<p>For agrument’s sake: what if Harvard were solely interested in just admitting the best (in their opinion) freshmen classes possible? How would that look to every outside examining eye? Wouldn’t that process mimic what you would say is chasing after “perceived status, whether it be in magazine rankings, international name recognition or general prestige”?</p>
<p>How can any college with a big reputation, solely pursue the best students (in their opinion), and not be subject to this labelling?</p>
<p>My alma mater spent hundreds of thousands of dollars sending kids home on break to visit schools w/no history of sending apps to Ivies – all for the hopes of finding a handful of “diamonds”. Not very efficient, nor arguably very utilitarian – but they do it anyway. More application pile stuffing? I think not.</p>
<p>BTW: HYP alums don’t really laugh at one another at the jostling of the USNWR rankings. Frankly, it’s a “been there done that” feeling. I agree w/Pizzgirl’s thought about this: If my kids got into and wanted to go to any of the list of schools in the “top 20”, I’d be ecstatic b/c I know the difference among them is practically nil, IMHO.</p>
<p>Of course, I would shoo them away from attending my rival college – but that’s another situation entirely!</p>
<p>Annasdad - why do you always come on this board to be nasty. Some people get into heated discussion, and sometimes they may unintentionally step on someone’s toe, but you are just mean for no good reason.</p>
<p>
I think the rule is something like this … anyone publically supporting a school at the level of a particular person’s school or lower is displaying school pride … anyone publically displaying support for a higher ranked school than that person’s school is a braggart snob … :^)</p>